Like Oil and Water
by SimplyElymas
Summary: A series of 100 HolmesWatson drabbles. Yes, slash. And yes, romance. I might as well admit it.
1. Dark

Watson shuddered as a drop of rain fell down his back. Holmes did not seem to be feeling the cold, wending his way through the dark trees. The doctor yawned nervously.

"Tired, Watson?"

"It's nearing one o' clock at night. Hadn't we better -"

"Certainly not. I saw our man there up ahead. You have your revolver?"

Watson's breath was coming very fast now. White faced, he nodded.

Holmes turned to his companion, a small smile twitching at his mouth. Wordlessly, he held out one lean hand.

Watson took it, and like two small boys, they proceeded into the night.


	2. Scent

Excuse the author's note. I usually don't do them. I do have to add, though, from here on out, any reviews decrying this simply because I write slash will be deleted without explanation. I realize that we all love Holmes, but some of us choose to interpret the story differently. Give it a chance, you might like it.

This is set during the Great Hiatus.

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I'm stamping my feet to warm them. It is cold. London looks dismal and Dickensian. I was preoccupied with the thought of getting home when I smelled you.

No one else has that particular scent of shag tobacco and gunpowder. But it is only the lapel of my coat. I sniff it again. It still holds your scent. It is an ordinary coat. Is it possible that as we lodged together mine was swapped for yours?

It no longer matters, true, but standing there in the coat that smells of you, it seems to matter more than all the world.


	3. Purple

Stamford's POV. Set during STUD.

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I found him hitting the corpse vehemently with a stick.

"Holmes! Holmes, what are you doing?"

"Trying," he panted, "to see how far there can be bruising after death." Holmes was about to give it another solid whack when I reached out and grabbed his wrist. He glared at me.

"Holmes, for pity's sake," I said. "It's a human being."

I later mentioned it to Doctor Watson. I am afraid he was not dissuaded from his desire to room with the overzealous young medical student who spent his time examining the bruises he'd created, all black and blue and purple.


	4. Sunrise

I can't count the number of times I've come into the parlor of a morning to see you asleep in your armchair, resplendent in dressing gown and rumpled suit. One arm is thrown back behind your head, hand curled near your parted lips. Your collar is blown back and forth by your breath. The iridescent sheen of hair on your temple is highlighted by the sun coming in at the window. You are never more like a child than when you sleep, all long limbs and quiet breath. Your mouth is turned up at the corners. Why are you smiling?


	5. Apprehension

The idea of calling on them frightened me. I was disturbed at the prospect of finding Holmes conducting experiments on Watson.

When I did finally call, Holmes was out, and Watson seemed happy with his lodgings. He beckoned me to sit down and have a drink. I accepted.

After some half an hour, an elderly lady burst in. I was quite alarmed. Watson was unperturbed, although she was ranting at us in a tenor that belonged to no woman of that age.

"Idiots! Utter idiots!"

The woman spotted me and ripped off her wig.

"Hello again, Stamford," said Sherlock Holmes.


	6. Hours

I sat there waiting for half the night, my cheek against the wing of his armchair. The door woke me, screeching open and shut. I heard him curse, then the familiar sounds of his hat and coat on their pegs. He entered in his shirt sleeves, summarily shedding his jacket. "Good evening, Watson," he said vaguely, without looking me in the eye. He gave a half-hearted glance to the cocaine bottle before disappearing into his room. Oddly enough for Holmes, he looked genuinely tired.

Suddenly, I realized that on his account I had been up for nearly forty-eight hours together.


	7. Linguistics

I am his chronicler. I should be able to play with words, but I have no words for this time and place.

Last night I dreamed I was a poem, and that was where all the words had disappeared to. They had become parts of me. I had words flickering like flames on the tip of my tongue. I had them all inside and around my chest, lining the edges of my body like a second skin. There were sentences swimming on the surface of my face. There was a whole novel inside my heart.

I have lost my language.


	8. Not Enough

I watch the shadow of his hand on the wall. In the candlelight, the shadow is even more thin and graceful than the real thing. I've only a vague idea of what he's talking about, something about music.

One hand is open, palm up, fingers just slightly curled, as if in supplication. Then it suddenly flips over. He's trying to illustrate some point, and he extends his arm, index and middle fingers stretched out. The hand's shadow hits the shadow of my shoulder, almost as though he's touching me. He's not.

A thousand times a day he almost caresses me.


	9. Too Much

When our hero begged for this in his dreams, in his prayers, he didn't know what he was asking for. One wouldn't think that such a slight, bony frame would hold so much emotion, and one wouldn't think that if it did, it would ever be expressed. But it pours out of that frame in torrents.

There is simply _too much _of him. His huge bright eyes, his soft and bitten lips, his finely wrought hands, his perfect white skin. Our hero is intoxicated with him. Going mad. The soft sound of his breath is roaring in our hero's ears.


	10. Dinner

Author's Note: Simpson's was a restaurant where men could play chess while eating. Holmes mentions it in Dying Detective.

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"Where do you fancy dinner?"

Sherlock Holmes is plainly not concentrating on the subject at hand.

"Holmes! Holmes? Where do you fancy dinner, I said?"

Holmes blinks lazily and looks up at his friend. "I don't know. Simpson's again, I suppose. Do you feel up for being beaten at chess again?"

Watson shrugs. "I suppose it is my destiny."

"Mmm."

"Holmes, your mind is obviously elsewhere."

Doctor Watson pulls his shirt on and starts out of the Turkish bath dressing room. Holmes smirks, reaching for his trousers. Yes, he thinks, as he pulls his towel off, elsewhere than dinner, certainly.


	11. Lies

"Wire for Mr. Holmes!"

Holmes took the paper, knocking mud off his boots as he and Watson entered the inn.

"Lady residing nearby," he muttered, reading, "Of marriageable age. . .Bah." He crumpled it.

"Will there be a reply, sir?"

"Yes. 'Cannot call on your friend. Pressing case at hand. S.H.'"

"Pressing case?" Watson frowned. "Aren't we on holiday?"

"Anything to avoid calling on my brother's latest prospect for me."

"Not quite up on the marriage gambit, are we Holmes?" Watson had to remark.

"As you say, my dear fellow," Holmes replied, helping Watson out of his coat, "not quite."


	12. White

He's fallen into bed without bothering to undress. His shirt is undone, nervous fingers still ineffectually twitching at the buttons. His skin is so pale Watson can barely tell where the sheets end and his friend begins. There doesn't seem to be any variance in the cast of his skin. It's like marble, or ivory. It doesn't look alive. In that moment, he looks like a a Michelangelo statue, cheekbones too prominent, eyes too peacefully closed. The effect is ruined, though, by those emaciated hands, tendons far more prominent than they should be, spastically clutching the coverlet.

"Can't sleep, Watson?"


	13. Whisper

"Can't sleep, Watson?"

"Not really," I whispered.

"Why the whisper?" he whispered back.

"Too tired to talk properly."

"Why's this?"

"Sat up half the night waiting for you."

"Why'd you do that?"

"Some mad fondness for you, I suppose."

His irritated eyes twitched under closed lids. "If you're going to whisper, you'll have to come closer."

"Probably your ears." I spoke normally.

"Keep it down, you'll wake Mrs. Hudson!" the great detective hissed hoarsely.

"You said not to whisper," I said, whispering again.

"I said to come closer."

Pause.

"Closer."

Pause.

"Closer."

"Closer?"

"Closer."

The sheets ruffled with movement.

"_Sh_."


	14. Hide

He's terribly close, one hand brushing the coverlet, but he won't let me meet his eyes.

It's been a long night, and seventy-two hours is a long time for the body to go without sleep. All that time spent searching for a hidden criminal, only to come home and have _Watson _hiding his eyes from me. Intolerable.

I sit up to look him in the eye and my collar falls open a bit, revealing the scratch, long and angry red.

"Holmes, that's _infected._"

"Not badly."

"Have you been hiding that?"

"How much have we both been hiding?"


	15. Grief

"Where did that come from?" Holmes inquires, quirking one eyebrow. It was only a cheap wall piano, but naturally, he noticed it.

"I took up playing while you were. . .away." Watson's real musical inspiration is clear, though, from the glance he gives to Mary's photograph on the mantlepiece.

Holmes's face clouds at this, closing his friend out for a moment. Then one of his sudden grins splits the wall between them. He reaches out and pulls Watson's shoulder to his, Holmes's closest approximation of an embrace.

When Holmes left the room, Watson knew it was to get his violin.


	16. Play

Holmes rests his chin on the violin like a lover's shoulder. His grin nearly knocks it out of place, but he shoves it back. Watson's struggling to keep up with the quick tempo, but Holmes is delighted with his newfound pianist. When Holmes's playing makes the doctor doubt his soundness of mind, Watson must cry out, half laughing, "Stop! Stop it, Holmes!"

Holmes does, with great peals of hilarity. "All right, steady on, old man. For pity's sake, why did you never tell me you played the piano before?"

"I feel as though I never did play the piano before."


	17. Death

This draws heavily upon the fact that in the nineteenth century sex between men was referred to with the code word of "morbid," or "morbidity," because of the way that among lower class gay men venereal disease was widespread and often fatal.

-------------------------------------------

"You know what they call this, Holmes?"

"Mmm? No. So sorry, dear fellow, I wasn't paying attention."

"They're calling it morbidity, Holmes."

"The lower elements will destroy us yet."

"Not funny."

Holmes made a vain attempt to smooth down his hair. "Watson, get off my arm."

Watson rolled over. "Apologies."

Holmes sat up, sheets cascading off his bare shoulders. "So this is our death bed?" he wondered lackadaisically.

"It certainly will be if you're not properly awake and dressed by the time Lestrade calls about the Egyptian matter."

The great detective leaped out of bed, cursing loudly as he went.


	18. Moon

Montpellier. 1893.

He's sitting miserably in the dark, and thinking of the man he used to be. It shocks him to find that there are still fragments of the old Sherlock Holmes inside of the man he's become.

The moon brings on the memory.

"_Lovely moon tonight."_

"_Hmm."_

"_You're jaded."_

"_Yes."_

He hadn't thought much of the dialogue then. It had been during their last weeks together. Some night in Switzerland. At the time he'd been preoccupied with wondering if it was the last moon he'd ever see.

In retrospect, it had been lovely. He wishes he'd told Watson so.


	19. Nightmare

I could not call out. I could do nothing to stop it. Biting my lips with their pasted on smile, I was hardly a handsome best man, but I'd do. What a very well-favored groom. What a very beautiful bride. What a very charming wedding this would be if the groom were only somebody else.

In a dream nothing looks real. Nothing in this godforsaken church looked real, but I knew this was not a dream.

He looked happy, anyway, and with the detatched horror of a man in a nightmare I watched him slip the ring onto Mary's finger.


	20. Drink

I'm afraid I have no excuse whatsoever for the relative tastelessness of this drabble. It's not as bad as it seems, you just need to read through to the end.

"Come on," I coaxed, "swallow it. It can't possibly be that bad."

"I absolutely will not. It is too degrading." Holmes glared up at me.

"Please don't think of it that way!" I urged him. "Go on. You'll barely even taste it, trust me."

"You wouldn't know."

"Actually, I _would_. If you recall, I -"

"No, no, I remember, you don't have to draw me a picture."

He sat there sulking as I waited with studied patience.

"Fine," he finally groused, and drank down the teaspoon of medicine which I had been bothering him about for the past ten minutes.


	21. Run

"RUN!"

Holmes grabs my hand and pulls me forward.

"RUN!"

A shot rings out above us.

"Watson, listen to me! He has a gun! He'll _kill_ you! RUN!"

I can't keep running. Holmes curses and, wildeyed, drags me into the next alley way we barrel past. Our pursuers dash on.

I fall back against the wall. And then he doesn't say a word, merely takes my hand and presses it to his face. He is horribly striking, street lamp light outlining the vigorous cheekbones.

"We said we'd rid ourselves of that morbid business."

"That's only another kind of running away."


	22. Found

Martha Hudson is a moral woman. She frowns on morbidity, scowled on the Oscar Wilde business, and has never had an impure thought in her life, thank you.

But there is plainly something untoward at Baker Street.

She knows because when she came to awaken Mr. Holmes for his appointments, there he was, plain as day, his head resting on the doctor's shoulder.

The doctor slept on, but Mr. Holmes's eyes remained wide open and unafraid.

_You knew, Martha, as you have always known, _he seemed to challenge her.

But then he smiled, and she knew she couldn't rat them out.


	23. Enemies

I was never jealous of Miss Morstan. I'm still not. How could I be? Her rapport with Watson is utterly different from mine. Two men cannot have romantic relations. It is not possible. And I had seen Watson and Mary together. Their contact was all yielding tenderness, like wax melting into each other. But pain was the only method of contact we could use without shaming ourselves. We punished each other for what we were doing. What we were forced to do. So. What I want with tenderness? No, I am not jealous of Mary.

I swear.

Not at all.


	24. Days

The days seem rather longer without Holmes, I've noticed. Since his retirement to Sussex, I see him rarely, perhaps on a weekend visit, and now the days seem needlessly expansive. There are no vivid, sordid crimes, of our own or of professional criminals, to fill the huge white canvas of twenty-four long hours. Nor do the nights hold quite the same distractions as they once did, whether those distractions entailed Holmes arriving in my bedroom declaring the game afoot, or Holmes arriving in my bedroom declaring something quite different.

I wonder if his days, among his bees, are too long.


	25. Breakfast

I think we're going to go ahead and assume this takes place before "Lovers."

* * *

For Watson, the dawn was silent and full of regret. For Holmes, the dawn was just silent, as he was asleep. Watson sat and fretted over breakfast. Holmes sat up in bed and attempted to flatten his mussed hair. He glanced at the sheets. Stained. Explaining _that_ to Mrs. Hudson would be interesting. He dressed, trying not to think. During breakfast, Holmes did not mention the previous night. Watson wondered if it had been a wild, madman's dream.

At least, until he was obligated to concoct an excuse for Mrs. Hudson regarding the inexplicably ripped off buttons on his shirt.


	26. Lunch

By the way - I will be posting these in chronological order when they're all finished. As of now, I'm writing whatever strikes my fancy and posting them in that order. If you have any specific questions about chronology, feel free to ask in your review and I'll be sure to reply!

* * *

"Mr. Holmes! Dr. Watson!"

Mrs. Hudson found herself frustratedly pounding on the door of 221B Baker Street.. "Gentlemen! Are we wanting lunch? Or are you both planning to –"

Holmes emerged from the door like a jack in the box, a vaguely inappropriate grin on his face. "Good morning, Mrs. Hudson."

"It is lunchtime, sir."

"Oh, is it?" Holmes felt for his watch, then realized he was wearing his dressing-gown and had none. "I've been in bed all day. . ."

"I'm sure. You won't be wanting lunch, then, sir."

"No." His grin became even more inappropriate. "Most likely not."


	27. Sea

"What would you think about going to the seaside for a holiday?"

"I would think it an abominable idea."

"You simply dislike water."

"So would you, if you nearly died falling off a waterfall. Pass the hydrochloric acid."

"Careful, Holmes!"

"I could say the same to you!"

There was a sharp tinkle of breaking glass, and then a very loud explosion sounding something like a gunshot and something like a cat being tortured. Conversation tapered off.

"I suppose we could always go to the seaside while Mrs. Hudson hires someone to patch the hole in the floor," Watson suggested dryly.


	28. Years

For each, three years had been a long time to go without the other. Like a conjurer's trick in reverse, you only see companionship when it's not there. When they saw each other next, there was no more discordance. You cannot have serious disagreements with a man when simply having him there, breathing and frowning and smiling and being maddeningly alive, his heart beating and his eyes gleaming, is a miracle. Just to be able to look at each other, to know that the other was there, was enough. Time had worn them smooth, like a stone in the sea.


	29. Touch

I simply could not understand it. Holmes was the most physically coordinated man I'd ever known. He could fence, box, and had knowledge of _baritsu_, or Japanese wrestling. And yet he kept bumping into me. It happened most days at least once. He would collide with me on our way to a hansom, or brush his hand over mine as he reached for his letters in the morning. I could not explain it. Was he angry with me? Was he sick? If he was, he certainly would never say so. It was disquieting. But I somehow couldn't say I minded.


	30. Shore

Holmes walked aimlessly across the beach. Near the cottage they'd rented, Watson was having an argument in furious French with a group of tourists from the continent. He was having no success, as he spoke no French, and the tourists were obviously Italian in any case. Holmes traced vague patterns in the sand with his shoe, and hummed _Manon._ He couldn't remember the words, something about love written in sand. The sea hissed and he winced. _Water._ He had hated water since Reidenbach. It wiped things out. It stole things. What things Holmes did not neurotically deprive himself of anyway.


	31. Rain

Watson woke to the sound of rain on the roof, the dampness making his wound ache. He sat up and threw the covers off, only to have the not-so-asleep Holmes grab his wrist. "Don't go."

"It's morning."

"We're not in London. You don't have a practice to get up and tend to."

"We'll be back soon, Holmes."

"Don't depress me."

"I didn't mean to."

"You're right, anyway." Holmes sat up. "We'll have come in out of the metaphorical rain, sooner or later. But I'd rather later."

"Yes," conceded Watson, dropping back onto the mattress, "later."

Outside, the rain went on.


	32. Food

Takes place during or shortly before STUD. Sorry about the Nutty Chronology of Doom.

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"You must eat sometime," I said, staring shocked at my mysterious co-lodger.

"Oh, I will," he assured me, "don't worry about me. I just forget, sometimes."

"How can you _forget_ to eat?" The idea was appalling to a discharged military man who ate as though he hadn't seen food in months.

"At least I'm not skeletal." Holmes, and collapsed into his chair.

"Skeletal?" I repeated, hurt. "Myself? Really?

But he had passed beyond my ken, into a dreamy, melancholy haze of tobacco smoke and warmth. Now I could examine him.

He was practically _concave_, a tragically empty amalgamation of bones.


	33. Trust

"Are you hurt?"

"No," came the muffled drawl from behind his bedroom door.

"What happened last night? I heard you limping up the stairs."

"You needn't worry."

"Holmes, don't talk nonsense." The door was slammed in my face. "Holmes!" I placed my shoulder against it and shoved. It gave way immediately, and I spilled forward onto the floor.

Lying prostrate and looking up, I saw Holmes sitting atop the bed, grinning from ear to ear and perfectly fine. "I fake a limp rather well, did you notice? It got you here. It's nice to feel worried after, I must say."


	34. Faith

She sits at home and waits. She does not know what else to do. Sometimes she speaks angrily to him – why must he go off on these bizarre adventures? What is the meaning of it? Why can he never stay quietly at home with his loving wife?

These outbursts generally prove useless, and yet untoward thoughts never enter her mind. She believes in him. She loves him. She knows he loves her too.

She leaves his hot dinner on the hob for him, and she waits in their cold bed.

Mrs. Mary Watson knows all she needs to know.


	35. Tears

He is hiding in plain sight, holed up in the cold attic.

He is holding a book. The book is called South Sea Idyll. It is the story of a San Francisco man's love affair with a Tahitian boy. It is not a particularly tasteful book, but it calls to something in him. Perhaps it is not the subject of the book, but the love of the impossible that it recalls that draws him near.

His name is Sherlock Holmes.

He knows that he is different. He is horribly afraid.

He is seventeen years old.

Eventually, he begins to cry.


	36. Sunset

There he is, asleep again before the sun has even set. The golden light of the sun's last hurrah is creeping in the window behind him, though. It catches on his hair and on the gilt lettering of his book's title. I have to smile. _Catullus. _I did give it to him, after all, when…

Nostalgia is no good tonight. There are more interesting prospects in evidence.

"Suns may set and rise again: for us, when our brief light has set, there is the sleep of constant night," I quote. Catullus again. And then I go to wake him up.


	37. Star

The next three drabbles are a sequence. They are also unashamedly and sincerely sappy. It's the season of forgiveness, so may I be absolved.

* * *

They are both awake, but neither wants to disturb the other.

It is Christmas Eve. The year is 1895.

In the dark, they have whispered things to each other, quiet, secret things. They are things that could almost be prayers.

Idly, Holmes is wondering whether the Star of Bethlehem guides all of us, or only those who are obedient. But these thoughts are too heavy and cold, and it is the season of warmth and forgiveness.

He decides that obedience is a relative term, and goes back to his bedroom. Perhaps disturbing Watson would not be such a bad idea.


	38. Snow

Christmas morning!

Watson remembers the thrill that would send through him as a child. Have you been good, and will Father Christmas leave you something?

Well. He hasn't been good. But Mrs. Hudson is calling out, from the sitting room, in a voice almost rendered childlike by her excitement, "Doctor Watson! Wake up! It snowed, Doctor!"

Watson smiles. Holmes must be sputtering at the landlady's improper, although well intended, presence in the parlor.

"Do wake up," says Holmes, appearing in his doorway, looking disheveled but cheerful in his rumpled dressing gown. "Our estimable landlady is right. It has been snowing."


	39. Family

"So Christmas does not concern you?" Watson asks, taking a coal in the tongs to light his pipe.

"No," Holmes says, "It is a phenomenon of family. I am not a familial creature."

Downstairs, Mrs. Hudson is humming and getting the goose ready for Christmas dinner. She hears their talk and laughs.

The doctor considers how extremely foolish such an intelligent man as Holmes can be. Perhaps he does tend more towards being Scrooge then Tiny Tim, but then, the doctor would have him no other way.

"And so," the landlady murmurs wryly to herself, "God bless us, every one!"


	40. Lost

When he was a child, he would purposefully get lost on the downs of Sussex, forcing his governess, his brother, eventually the entire household, and sometimes the official force to come find him. He enjoyed the small, sweet challenge of escaping them, and then arriving home on his own, unscathed.

Now perhaps he is getting lost again, only now without purpose, lost in sin and in black depravity. Or perhaps he is lost in companionship and in something that is, to Sherlock Holmes, altogether more alarming than sin.

The difference is, of course, that now he is lost with company.


	41. Ends

How does one define the end of a matter when there has never been a clear definition of what the matter is? How does one end something one does not wish to admit had ever begun?

He is no fool. He said he would know when their idyll ends. He will feel no pain. He knew instantly, from the moment he watched the flash between the eyes of Watson and Miss Morstan. He saw the inevitable end.

Why then, is he still here, staring at his friend's face, watching him sleep?

He's not an idiot. He knows when something ends.


	42. Guilt

Watson's POV.

-------

He does not like to speak of it. I have attempted to breech the subject countless times, and he does not seem to care.

I am not sure which alarms me more.

Sometimes I want to take him by the shoulders and shout in his face, "I betrayed you! I have left you alone, when I swore I never would!"

"_And did you really think that I would care?"_ I imagine him answering me, sneering. But I have not done this, perhaps because although I know his true strength, he seems so fragile.

My guilt, then, is without any resolution.


	43. Black

It was a parlor game at a dinner party, and nothing more. Simply a paltry amusement, the sort of thing that Watson ordinarily reveled in. A color was proposed, and the guests, separating into couples, were to scribble down everything of that color which came into their minds.

He and Mary bent over their paper, trying to think of things that were black.

Mary thinks of panthers, and the plague, which she thinks terribly clever, and the sky at night.

Watson thinks of frock coats, and blackbirds, and mourning dress.

And he does not think of Holmes's hair.

Not once.


	44. Innocence

It always shocks me for a moment, the way that childhood passes through his face whenever he hears of a puzzle. More surprising is the look of seeming naïve bewilderment every time he hears of an atrocity. It is utterly incongruous, and always tightens a moment later into an expression of cool indifference, but nevertheless, it is there.

There are so many answers I crave, for this uncharacteristic innocence disturbs me. My curiosity is crude and childlike. Has he ever been with a woman? Has he ever been with…

Better that my mind does not run in this dangerous direction.


	45. Months

The beginning of a story arch set just after Holmes's retirement.

* * *

It has been three years since his retirement. Watson comes to visit every six months or so. Every time he visits, Holmes greets him at the station, smiling. They do not talk much about their intimacy any longer. They don't need to. And every time, in bed on Sunday night, Holmes asks if Watson will stay with him.

Every time, Watson says no.

Today, Holmes received a telegram. Soon, Watson writes, he comes to stay.

And any moment now, he will come in the door…

Holmes has waited since 1902. He can wait a little longer.

Any moment now.

Now.


	46. Middles

You may want to reread the previous drabble before this one, as they are sequenced.

* * *

It's not a long train ride, in perspective. Watson has taken trains to the Continent upon many occasions, not least the most memorable of which was his journey to Switzerland, where he lost Holmes for the first time.

Still, the ride from London to Sussex seems unbearably long. Watson feels himself in limbo. He knows that he has made a choice, and yet, perhaps it's all a dreamy mistake.

_Forgive me, _ he imagines the chugging wheels of the train to be saying. _Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me._

He can't be certain to whom he is repenting, God or Holmes.


	47. Beginnings

In sequence with the previous drabble. The next few are like that as well. I'll drop another author's note when the sequence stops.

* * *

Watson knows the story of Lot's wife and the city of Sodom. He knows how she looked back at what she had lost, only to be turned to a pillar of salt.

As he prepares to step off the platform to greet his tentatively smiling friend and one time constant companion, he begins to feel his doubts again, more keenly.

Everything stands against them. The law, the world, Holmes's endless neuroses, even his own treacherously frightened heart. He thinks of the irony, that he is going forward into Sodom.

He thinks of Lot's wife, and he does not look back.


	48. Fire

Watson lifts a coal with the tongs and deftly lights his pipe. His movements are like a well-remembered dance, Holmes thinks, staring into the fire. He does not need to look to know the way that Watson will tilt his head, tap tobacco onto the mantle, then look up to him for approval, like a puppy or a small boy.

It is beginning to come clear to him that he had done right in calling him here. He too had had his doubts, but now he can see that nothing really has changed.

Kindling can be consumed. Loyalty cannot.


	49. Love

"I will have you know that there is many a woman in England who would rejoice in the chance to marry me."

"Not after a day living with you, they wouldn't," Watson says sensibly, and kisses the nape of Holmes's neck.

"No, I suppose not. Do you plan to stay?"

"Why do you ask?"

"You're mocking me. _J'taime."_

"I don't speak French, I fear you shall have to translate."

"I love you. Stop being an imbecile," Holmes snaps, and cranes his neck back to look at Watson.

"I do plan to stay, thank you, my friend."

Holmes shuts his eyes.


	50. Lovers

There's a house on the Sussex Downs.

Two madmen live there.

Bees also live there, but the really important point is the madmen.

They were not always mad, not any more than any member of the human race is mad.

They must be mad now, because they are in love.

This is, of course, impossible, says the sane man.

The madmen, however, would point you to the tale of David and Jonathan, and to Greek history, and, if they were feeling mischievous, to Teleny.

They are mad, and they are lovers, and they are happy.

They are quite happy indeed.


	51. Triumph

Okay, story arch over. Back to the daily grind.

* * *

Crumpled telegram after crumpled telegram lay upon our poor long suffering carpet. I glanced at one. "My congratulations on your recent…" Another. "My thanks to you for assisting Britannia in…" "All of our commendations for your remarkable…"

And there he was, slumped in his armchair, frustrated and miserable.

If failure is relative, so too is success. All that mattered to him was this – the Professor had evaded his grasp once more.

I went to him, wrapped my arms about his thin frame, kissed him, and pretended not to notice the furious, angry tears that were gathering wetly on my shoulder.


	52. Truth

"Honestly, Watson, what is this tripe?" I tossed his manuscript of _The Adventure of the Three Garridebs _onto his bedspead. "'The depth of loyalty and love' – shall we just make a public announcement about it all?"

"What?" Watson asked, in a glorious, half-awake state.

I sighed. "This nonsense – it's completely –" Just woken up, he was distractingly luminous.

"True?" He smiled, delicate marks fanning out from his clear, warm brown eyes.

"Yes," I confessed, smiling foolishly as well, "quite true."

We lay there for some time, my head resting contentedly on his shoulder, before going down to breakfast.


	53. Broken

Watson had to admit that this was not how he had ever envisioned Holmes on his knees – if indeed he ever had. They had been engaged in a most congenial pastime when Holmes had suddenly broke off, cursing, and begun to search the floor for something. "Holmes, what on earth –"

"Watson, in your rather overly amorous state you seem to have broken my false left canine," replied his disgruntled friend. "Come here and look for it."

Such proximity did not combine productively with their present mood.

Tragically, there were more pressing concerns. The broken canine was never found.


	54. Partners

"Did you speak with Mrs. Donnely?"

"No, Holmes."

"What?" the detective demanded, furious. "Watson, her evidence is _crucial –"_

Watson raised his eyebrows. "Holmes, her son was just _murdered. _The poor lady can hardly be in any state to talk."

Holmes stood there for a moment, processing this new idea of human empathy. It was one that had always escaped him. Then, slowly, he smiled. "If I am the brains," he said, in the brittle, crisp tones that characterized his real compliments, "then you, Watson, are the heart of the agency."

Watson was always well aware that it was true.


	55. Fixed

He supposes that this is why he became a doctor – he always meant to fix things. He tells himself that Holmes is only one more broken patient to heal, with his neuroses and his loneliness. He tells himself that it is no more than that, a peculiar medical disorder which he is treating by whatever means necessary. And Holmes is broken in more ways than one. His nose, in his boxing years, and the peculiarly haggard look to his chest…

John Watson has made such a habit out of lying to himself that he hardly even notices it anymore.


	56. Blue

Holmes picks up the tintype of the two of them. It was a present, at the conclusion of the Drebber murder. It is seven years old, and its glass is clouded.

_Something old._

His fingers brush the edge of his stiff waistcoat – bought for the wedding. The best man mustn't look shabby.

_Something new._

It was only for a while, after all. He'd been lent comfort and joy that didn't belong to him.

_Something borrowed._

He sighs as he smoothes his tie in the mirror. Oh, he's very happy for his friend. He's only melancholy, that's all.

_Something blue._


	57. Red

"Ah!" Watson curses. "Don't _do _that!"

"My dear fellow, I had thought we were past our moral qualms by this time." Holmes cradles his head in his palm, somewhat hurt, but amusement playing about his mouth.

"We are, I – ah! Stop that!"

"I – wait, hang on. Half a minute. You got sunburned, didn't you? With Mary? In Brighton?"

"Frankly, I should have thought you'd have realized that. Why else would I look like a boiled lobster?"

"I don't mind it," volunteers Holmes blandly, shrugging. "I'm only pointing it out."

"I'm bloody bright red," Watson gripes. "And it _hurts_…Are you _laughing_?"


	58. Lightning

Self abuse is a somewhat archaic term for masturbation.

* * *

There wasn't anything, at first.

There never had been, really. He wasn't that sort of man. There was work. There were his thoughts. And there was the occasional, surreptitious self-abuse in the dark, but he was human, after all.

And then, to his great surprise, there was a man. It seemed as though he'd only blinked, then opened his eyes, and there was Watson, talking and laughing and apologizing and kindly intruding upon Holmes's life.

So then there was a friend.

And then, striking like lightning, leaving iridescent impressions behind his eyelids - to Holmes's eternal consternation, there was love.


End file.
